


While we kept on waiting

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 09:52:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14767322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Prompt: Hope has her own room in the manor asked by anon via tumblr





	While we kept on waiting

She didn’t remember how it happened, nor when the occasional bag and toy became less than a rarity and more of a fixture. She also didn’t remember when Emma started to come almost every day to the mansion, spending with her those moments in where Regina didn’t need to be the queen. It only happened in a flurry of activity that had Hope in the middle of it.

She liked it though, liked the way Hope smiled at her, at first blindly and once she was old enough to recognize her, with purpose. She adored the girl in the same  degree her father still made her skin crawl and being able to be with Emma… that was a particular gift she wasn’t ready to admit how much she was grateful for it.

“I’ve missed you.” The blonde had told her with that lopsided smile of hers, shy and soft and brimming with something Regina wasn’t sure what it was. It had been immediately after the coronation, once the party had begun to trickle away in smaller groups and Emma had had the possibility to come to her, Hope on her arms. Regina had only nodded, said something along the lines of “I did too.” While trying her hardest not to bite her lower lip, ask Emma more than just that.

They had never talked about why Emma had crossed the portal that day, lost in a time knot so complicated to unravel Regina herself had headaches whenever she tried to figure out how many years had already passed since the original curse, the one that, at the end, had brought Emma into her life.

Emma who, slowly, as weeks passed, returned to be the Sheriff of Storybrooke, teaching young Henry the ropes and slowly but surely regaining some of the fiery personality Regina remember her having. Detail that wasn’t lost to anyone, not to Snow, not to David, not to Hook.

That’s why, perhaps, that one day after a week of growing excuses Emma had knocked on her door and asked her, with trembling lips but dark eyes if Regina could momentarily take care of Hope.

“I don’t want her to see this.” She had said and Hope, less of a baby now, more of a toddler, had stared at Regina as she had picked her up, feeling the warmth the girl irradiated alongside with the faintest scent of magic Regina had long ago learned to link to her mother. Her mother who, back straightening, had mouthed a soft thank you Regina had wanted to cover with her own lips.

She, of course, didn’t and yet she found herself blinking dazedly at her guest room, the one that had once upon a time being empty and, suddenly, she realized that it had become Hope’s.

It ached, she had realized and so she had hugged the girl and let her sleep as she stared at the phone on her hand, considering if she needed to call Henry, the adult one, or just wait, confiding in Emma, in Emma’s magic that she still felt coating her. A delicate sheen of power that made everything around her crackle in dirty white magic.

She ended up falling asleep on her guest room, on Hope’s room, and, by the time she woke up, she saw Emma’s silhouette hunched close to the baby, green eyes gleaming on the slowly receding light that seeped through half-closed windows.

“I didn’t know you had this.” Emma’s voice was soft, hoarser perhaps but she didn’t seem defeated. Tired maybe but the ring, that awful ring, wasn’t on her hand and Regina swallowed thickly before nodding.

“I think it happened without me realizing.”

Emma smiled at her, eyelids dropping and fluttering open once again.

“Stay.” Regina found herself whispering, not caring an ounce of what the following day would bring. If she had learnt something about the consecutive curses, the consecutive versions of herself, was that she needed to grasp what she had in front of her.

Fingers warm and crackling with purple, she circled Emma’s wrist and stared at the blonde until she nodded.

“I will.”


End file.
